Exhibitions

The inaugural exhibition of the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira explores multiple representations of the house in the director’s films, focusing in particular on the film, Visit, or Memories and Confessions (1982), that was pr...

The inaugural exhibition of the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira explores multiple representations of the house in the director’s films, focusing in particular on the film, Visit, or Memories and Confessions (1982), that was produced at a time when Oliveira, already in his seventies, was forced to leave the house where he had lived with his family for over forty years. The director decided that Visit should only be presented posthumously. It was thereby predestined to have a paradoxical statute: as a work of memories and confessions, in which the filmmaker remembers the past while discussing his own cinematographic convictions, while also providing a preview of themes explored in his subsequent films — the most substantial part of his oeuvre — which unexpectedly was still to come. The film’s overall tone revolves around saying farewell to a place, and to his own life, but it actually turned out to be more prophetic than testamentary.

The film harbours an eloquent expression of the importance of the house in Oliveira’s films, as revealed in the many houses featured in his work: those facing the street, as in Aniki Bóbó (1942) and The Box (1994) or those which, on the contrary, enclose spaces, as in Convent (1995), revolving around the diabolical dilemmas of the intimacy of a couple. The house-theatre of bourgeois farce in The Past and the Present (1972), the house-prison in Benilde or the Virgin Mother (1975), the two rival houses that lead to a tragic conclusion in Doomed Love (1978) or the romantic disenchantments of Francisca (1981). The ruined houses, offering views over the prosperous vineyards of the Douro, which stir up social eroticism in Abraham’s Valley (1993) or incendiary behaviour in The Uncertainty Principle (2002). The house-stage of My Case (1986), in which cinema is theatrically compelled to face itself, or the house-tomb of The Day of Despair (1992), in which the director theatrically stages his personal identification with Camilo Castelo Branco. The house-ship of A Talking Picture (2003), the house-island of Party (1996) or the house-world, an asylum for alienated persons, in The Divine Comedy (1991). The house from which one flees, in Gebo and the Shadow (2012), or to which one inevitably returns, in I’m Going Home (2001). The strange case of the house that is traversed between Journey to the Beginning of the World (1997) and Porto of My Childhood (2001), which simultaneously constitutes a beginning and end, halfway between memories and ruins. These are some of the houses which can be visited during this exhibition and its accompanying film series. They either serve as grounds for a social portrait of Portugal and an inquiry into the state of the world, or for a biographical construction of the director, as a space that embodies the origin and centre of gravity of his entire oeuvre, while also opening doors towards questioning the act of filming and the nature of cinematographic art.

As a film set, theme, symbol, dramatic entity or stage, the house is the territory that underpins the relationship between the private and the public, and the individual and the collective. It is no accident that Visit rehearses themes that were explored a decade later in NO or the Vain Glory of Command, the great fresco with which Oliveira questioned the entire history of Portugal — from Viriato to the 1974 Revolution. This contrast of scales is extended, in Visit, to the tension between the word and image, between documentary recording and fictional recreation, between the visible and the invisible that, in addition to making space a condenser of different epochs, makes this film — and in this regard it resembles a house — a dense place, that accumulates dialogues and crossed various gazes between the past, present and future.

A film of beginning and return, Visit, or Memories and Confessions, demonstrates, like no other film, that cinema is a spectral art. A phantasmagorical device that Oliveira shows us — and in which he shows himself — in order, in a final word, and a final image, to demonstrate that it is possible to inhabit a film in the same way that we inhabit a house.

Deposited in full at the Serralves Foundation since 2016, the Manoel de Oliveira Collection combines a vast set of documentation, consisting of various working materials - such as scripts, photographs, texts, preparatory drawings ...

Deposited in full at the Serralves Foundation since 2016, the Manoel de Oliveira Collection combines a vast set of documentation, consisting of various working materials - such as scripts, photographs, texts, preparatory drawings and props, among other items - as well as prizes, posters, correspondence and the director’s entire personal library. The collection is a precious instrument to further our knowledge of his work, as well as the history of cinema, art and culture in Portugal in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The selection of documents presented herein, conceived in conjunction with the temporary exhibition Manoel de Oliveira: The House, proposes a journey through the filmmaker’s archive, built up over more than eighty years, while focusing on some of his unmade projects. Starting from a list - in which the filmmaker lists his rejected funding requests, specifically in the period between 1952 and 1963 - the exhibition enables us to foresee the scale that Manoel de Oliveira's oeuvre could have attained, in a different political context and with more favourable production conditions. But whereas his oeuvre - the most extensive body of work in the history of Portuguese cinema - experienced numerous setbacks and interruptions, especially during the Estado Novo regime, it is also certain that many of his abandoned projects inspired or were reintegrated into, in part or in full, other films that he directed. This exhibition provides clues to Manoel de Oliveira's working processes and personal obsessions, complemented by the presentation of two documentaries: Manoel de Oliveira (1981), produced by Augusto M. Seabra and José Nascimento for RTP’s "Ecran” programme; and Conversazione a Porto: Manoel de Oliveira e Agustina Bessa-Luís (2005), by Daniele Segre. Above all, the exhibition highlights the determination and persistence with which this oeuvre was built.

This exhibition offers two different approaches to the cinema of Manoel de Oliveira. An interactive videowall proposes a journey through the director’s oeuvre. Organised using a chronology that itself represents how his oeuvre e...

This exhibition offers two different approaches to the cinema of Manoel de Oliveira. An interactive videowall proposes a journey through the director’s oeuvre. Organised using a chronology that itself represents how his oeuvre evolved over more than eight decades, different sets of documentation are presented in relation to each of Oliveira’s films. Film sequences, photographs, texts, scripts, correspondence, preparatory drawings and a wide selection of other documents help us interpret and contextualise some of the key issues, creative processes and thematic and formal options that mark the singularity of his oeuvre.

A second section, consisting of five simultaneous and synchronised projections, explores possibilities of presentation of cinematographic materials in an exhibition context. Spatialisation of the images fosters confrontation between different shots and sequences that, as an exercise of analysis and recomposition, aims to explore approximations and resonances between different moments within the same film, thereby rendering explicit some of the formal peculiarities of Manoel de Oliveira’s oeuvre.

This permanent exhibition also aims to be a dynamic exhibition. In addition to functioning as a repository of the activities developed by the Casa do Cinema in relation to Manoel de Oliveira’s oeuvre, it will be permanently renovated and reconfigured, thereby offering multiple perspectives of the director's cinema.

The collection of artists’ books of the Serralves Museum, curated by Guy Schraenen until his death in 2018, is one of the leading collections in Europe. Represented are all types and tendencies of this art genre, which emerged i...

The collection of artists’ books of the Serralves Museum, curated by Guy Schraenen until his death in 2018, is one of the leading collections in Europe. Represented are all types and tendencies of this art genre, which emerged in the late 1950s when artists invented the concept of the ‘artist’s book’, a new and revolutionary way of dealing with the space of the book and with the diffusion of ideas and works. On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, the three-chapter exhibition Game, Set, Match will present major publications by visual artists of all horizons. It will highlight three main investigative fields within the universe of artists’ books: while chapter one deals with the tautological notion of the artist’s book as book, chapter two reflects on the book as an artwork in its own right, equivalent to a painting or a sculpture; chapter three focuses on works that exist at the interface between book and object. Altogether, the presented works are examples of how artists metamorphose the ordinary aspects of the book. Rather than destroying its ideas, they give new life and perspectives to it. Game, Set, Match: Three Concepts of the Artist’s Book is organised by the Serralves Foundation – Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, and is curated by Maike Aden after concepts by Guy Schraenen.

Marking the 30th anniversary of the Serralves Foundation, Voyage to the Beginning and Back, The Serralves Collection 1989-2019 presents significant works from its collection or that occupy an important place in the genesis and his...

Marking the 30th anniversary of the Serralves Foundation, Voyage to the Beginning and Back, The Serralves Collection 1989-2019 presents significant works from its collection or that occupy an important place in the genesis and history of the Serralves Collection and Museum. Either because they were part of the original set of works assembled to set up Serralves Museum and the Collection, or because they were specifically produced for Serralves (for the spaces of the Villa, Museum or other parts of the city commissioned by Serralves) or because their first public presentation was in Serralves or because they were part of major solo exhibitions (and remembered as key moments both in the artist’s career and the history of the institution).

This is a way to write the history of Serralves and emphasise the fundamental role that it has played in the careers of renowned artists, establishing a sufficiently special relationship between them and the Museum which has often led to the production, presentation (and acquisition) of new works.

Álvaro Lapa, António Dacosta, Ângelo de Sousa and Joaquim Rodrigo are some of the artists who have been linked to Serralves from the outset, and whose works were included in the original set of works constituted by the then Secretary of State of Culture. The artists who will present works specifically produced for Serralves include Mathieu Abonnenc, André Cepeda, Hamish Fulton, Runa Islam, Albuquerque Mendes, Charlotte Moth, Maria Nordman, Lygia Pape, Augusto Alves da Silva, Mariana Silva and Simon Starling, that are presented alongside works by artists who have had important solo exhibitions in Serralves, including Pedro Cabrita Reis, Luc Tuymans and Lothar Baumgarten.

Serralves Villa also hosted major solo exhibitions and served as an inspiration for projects and works specifically designed for its spaces, including artists such as Pedro Barateiro, Ana Jotta, Nick Mauss, Antoni Muntadas, Richard Tuttle and Luc Tuymans. This exhibition will present some of the works in the specific places of the Villa for which they were originally conceived, as well as works previously presented elsewhere and now installed in the Villa, thereby enabling new interpretations and interactions.

Há Luz no Parque - Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, from 18 JUL to 21 SEP

Schedule: 9:30 pm to 00 am (last ticket: 11pm

Entrance: R. Dom João de Castro, 210

The 5th edition of the installation "There’s Light in the Park" represents a special moment in the programme of Serralves Park. During the summer months, the Park is open to the general public at night, and invites visitors to take part in different environmental and cultural experiences. Various iconic pathways, trees and elements are decoratively illuminated, projecting a play of light which creates new scenarios, centred around the Alameda dos Liquidâmbares, the Lake and the Farm. The programme of activities accompanying the installation, includes guided visits to the Park, which in a nocturnal experience, highlight and demonstrate the convergence between natural and artistic dimensions and, in symbiosis, recount stories and reinforce the remarkable natural heritage as visitors discover the nocturnal life of the park.

THE CONCEPT

When lighting an outdoor environment, it is possible to consider lighting as simply a way to guarantee the space’s functionality - responding to basic requirements in terms of visibility and safety. However, conciliation of such functional principles with a more

expressive dimension makes it possible to explore the multiple creative, playful and pedagogical potential that artificial lighting can have for people, nature and built spaces.

GUIDE

One of the main characteristics of the Park's nocturnal lighting is, above all, the ability to organise it and suggest directions to visitors along the various available paths and routes.

INTERACT

In certain places in the Park, visitors will be invited to manipulate the light, thereby transfiguring its effects on the landscape or even on people.

The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art presents a major exhibition by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, his first in Portugal. In this exhibition, the artist places several large-scale installations both organic and artif...

The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art presents a major exhibition by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, his first in Portugal. In this exhibition, the artist places several large-scale installations both organic and artificial within the museum as well as in the surrounding parkland. Aiming to foster a dialogue between inside and outside the selection of works plays on the already strong relationship the Serralves Foundation has developed between built environment and garden.

The exhibition is organized by the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by Philippe Vergne, Marta Moreira de Almeida and Filipa Loureiro, with Caroline Eggel at Studio Olafur Eliasson

Looped: Films from the Serralves Collection is a set of continuously screened films, structured across three different stages. The first stage (12 to 17 September) addresses the concepts of time and memory. The second stage (18 to...

Looped: Films from the Serralves Collection is a set of continuously screened films, structured across three different stages. The first stage (12 to 17 September) addresses the concepts of time and memory. The second stage (18 to 23 September) includes films that make different use of the languages and techniques of television, video and advertising and that reflect on these universes. The third and final stage (24 to 29 September) is related to performance and the presence of various performance-based practices recorded in films and videos, which exist and impose themselves as autonomous objects.

Name: Álvaro SizaDiscipline: as little as possibleThis confessional note - once written by Álvaro Siza on the inner flap of one of his sketchbooks - was the point of departure for the exhibition commemorating the twentieth anniv...

This confessional note - once written by Álvaro Siza on the inner flap of one of his sketchbooks - was the point of departure for the exhibition commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art.

Álvaro Siza: in/discipline reveals the salutary disquiet and insubordination that inform Siza’s creative method, construed over more than six decades in the cross-fertilization of knowledges, cultures, geographies, works and authors, and subsidiary to his questioning of architecture on the grounds of both what is inside and what is outside of this disciple.

Featuring thirty of Siza’s projects dated from 1954 to 2019 (both built and unbuilt) the exhibition traces the professional trajectory of the architect, examining the early years of his education through the full consolidation of his voice as an architect; his readings, sketchbooks and travel records, and the ways his work has been portrayed, photographically in seminal publications and verbally in personal statements by many of those contemporaries who have crossed paths with it over time.

Exhibition curated by: Nuno Grande and Carlos Muro

The exhibition is organised by the Serralves Foundation - Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, with contributions from the Serralves’ Álvaro Siza Archive, the Álvaro Siza fonds - Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal and the Álvaro Siza Archive - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon.